A walk down memory lane

Over the past 2 days about 2 feet of snow was dumped into my front yard. On some level I would like to complain like most everyone around me but there is one simple reason why I can not...Anna! When I was waiting for news of a referral so many different things seemed to block my path to a referral and to becoming her Mama. I found it amazing then and still now that with each bit of news that was good or great in fact, I would look outside and the snow was falling.

I live very close to the Ocean and it does some times snow here but nothing like it has in the past 2 years. I am sure that we have even gone years without seeing one snow flake. Now I am sure Gerard will disagree with me that the snow is so beautiful since after today it took him close to 5 hours to shovel our driveway which by the way not done yet. On the list for tomorrow is a snow blower if one is available because we are just getting too old for the shovel and have too many people to dig out every time it snows.

It snowed when I got news of my referral for Anna! I had flown into Detroit for a meeting with my agency the night before. If you have never been in Michigan in the winter it is cold, very cold. The roads were a bit harder to navigate because I did not know where I was going and there was old snow EVERY WHERE. When I found out about Anna I told them I needed a minute to think this all over and let it sink in. I walked outside and a soft gentle snow started to fall.

It snowed when I told our parents I was traveling soon to see a little girl in Russia! We had gone out to dinner for Gerard's parents anniversary. I was busting at the seems to tell everyone. Reading this seems like more then 2 years ago, more like a lifetime ago for many reasons.

The day that I found out about my travel dates and started to book my flights we had over 12 inches of snow on the ground.

The day I first saw my little baby. I left the baby home a mess. I never have said that here on the blog before but I silently cried the entire way home. I cried myself to sleep that night, tortured Gerard and Geralyn with text messages that night when I was awake. I am pretty sure that if I had known then it would be so long between my first visit and the next time I got to hold her I would have been even more of a mess.

A year and a couple of days ago the snow was coming down like crazy. Anna showed so much compassion for Gerard as he suffered with his kidney stones. I know this may sound crazy for those who have never adopted a child who at that point lived all but 4 months of her little life in an orphanage but for us adoptive parents this is HUGE! I think at that moment I knew things were going to get better for us in terms of attachment.

Anna loves to be held by me. In fact when she is upset the first thing out of her mouth is 'Hold please" or "Rocking please". Over the last year and a half we have worked on looking her in the face and telling her it is okay to be mad, sad and even angry. Mama or Daddy will always hold her or rock her. I think it has really sunk in that we are here to comfort her. I think of this as the biggest gift of all.

So I think the snow is beautiful all two and a half of it.

Snow pictures from today






On a side note, I do try to keep a hat on her but she takes them off as fast as I get them on. I only let her stay out for less then 10 minutes the wind was to harsh. Hopefully the wind will die down some so she can play a little bit in the snow. She is happy however that I fill big bowls of snow for her to play with inside.

I guess what I am trying to say in this rambling post is I am healing from the wait and the bumps in the road. When I was told that during my wait it was a hard pill to swallow. I thought that I would always feel the sorrow that I felt when I had to walk out of the baby home without her that cold day in March. My hope is that some one who is in the waiting game of getting a referral or in between trips reads this and has renewed hope that things will work out for them too.